DC Transit Workers: Fight vs. Privatization Needs Fight vs. Capitalism

WASHINGTON, DC, April 13 — Today 30 workers from Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 gathered at the union hall for a meeting called by the local leadership to organize a campaign against privatization of parts of the city’s transit system. For two decades, several lines in surrounding counties have been separated by local jurisdictions from the unified rail and bus system. This has shrunk workers’ wage and benefit packages in these separate and privatized sectors as well as cut into the ATU membership, weakening the union.
The DC government — run by liberal Democrats, most of whom have been endorsed by the local unions — has decided to investigate the cost savings from further privatization, this time for lines inside Washington, DC itself. This would cost another 175 union jobs and workers hired for those lines would end up worse off. This is just another bosses’ tactic to roll back workers’ standard of living to boost their own profitability.
Two approaches on the issue quickly developed. The union leadership and the organizer from Jobs with Justice advocated educating the membership about the danger of privatization and the possibility of layoffs if this occurred. They advocated that ATU workers and their allies circulate a petition to the Mayor demanding privatization be stopped.
 In contrast, PLP’ers and other militant workers advocated a strategy based on political analysis showing how the bosses’ privatization tactic is part of a general racist attack on unions the bosses are using to solve their current economic problems. (A huge majority of the transit workers are black and Latino.) These workers felt that we needed to urgently educate workers about how this privatization attack and many more similar assaults on workers’ well-being will continue as long as capitalism continues because of its need to maximize profits. Winning workers to see the need to eliminate capitalism has to be part of any strategy to fight privatization.
On a tactical level, both approaches are similar. Both want to have meetings and rallies against privatization, build a worker-rider alliance and eventually carry out work actions to drive the point home. The difference is in the message. Only revolution can win the fight against privatization. Any other “victory” will be short-lived, or the gains we make will be taken from some other workers. Moreover, if workers understand that this attack is just one arrow in the quiver of the capitalists, with more attacks to come, they will become more active and aggressive now in the current fight.
Our approach requires us to fight as hard as we can to preserve jobs, but also to organize for May Day around the goal of destroying capitalism, with its racist practices, and fighting for communism.
At the meeting several workers were skeptical about their co-workers joining in the fight, whether simply for the fight against privatization or the broader fight against capitalism. But blaming the workers won’t get us very far. An organizer must figure out why our brothers and sisters are not fighting back vigorously and convince them to change. This often requires patience and perseverance, including clear education about the urgency of the need to resist the capitalists’ systematic attack on our well-being. We are not going to win every battle, but by fighting together we can build a stronger movement against capitalism, and this will create the basis for our eventual victory.
At the end of the meeting several workers took May Day leaflets and posters, a step in the right direction.